Certain appliances, such as refrigerator appliances, include an ice maker. In order to produce ice, liquid water is directed to the ice maker and frozen. A variety of ice types can be produced depending upon the particular ice maker used. For example, certain ice makers include a mold body for receiving liquid water. An auger within the mold body can rotate and scrape ice off an inner surface of the mold body to form ice nuggets. Such ice makers are generally referred to as nugget style ice makers. Certain consumers prefer nugget style ice makers and their associated ice nuggets.
Existing nugget ice makers often require the mold body to be a large, unitary or single-piece member formed from a highly conductive material. During ice making operations, heat is generally conducted away from water within the mold body. A liquid cooling system is commonly used to draw heat from the mold body. However, such systems may be difficult to assemble or repair. A unitary mold body may be especially difficult and expensive to manufacture. If a liquid cooling system, it is possible that a portion of the liquid cooling system may leak if it is not properly maintained. Moreover, if the icemaker is mounted on a refrigerator door, liquid refrigerant lines to a liquid cooling system may be especially difficult to install or maintain.
Accordingly, ice maker assemblies with one or more easily-assembled and inexpensive features for drawing heat from water to be frozen (e.g., within a mold body) would be useful. It would be further useful if such assemblies were able to use air as a heat exchange medium while still minimizing the energy used to freeze ice nuggets.